


play your defense (but i’ll still steal your heart)

by jjokkiri



Series: monsta x bingo (winter 2017) [16]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Basketball, Fluff, M/M, Monsta X Bingo, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: Hyunwoo didn’t really care for making friends on the team, when he was leaving next year, but he didn’t want Hyungwon to just be afriend.





	play your defense (but i’ll still steal your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Written (as a replacement) for the _Rare Pairing_ square of [Monsta X Bingo](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/MXbingo).

It was almost like there was a relatively specific type of person that was needed to make up a basketball team—it was a strange observation, but when anyone surveyed a local basketball court that was closed off to a representative basketball team for the day, there were more than just a few similarities between each of the boys who stood on the court. Obviously, it needed to start with talent, when it was a city representative basketball team (or maybe, it started with parents who were a little too insistent that their child was extremely good at basketball and backed it up with _a lot_ of money). Most of them needed to be crazy enough to want to stand in scorching heat in the middle of the summer, practicing for the incoming season—that was still _months_ away—and not speak a word of complaint as they practically dripped with sweat. Most of the guys on the team stood taller than 170 centimetres, but they were all still in high school and growing—hoping to someday break that feat of being taller than that glorified _‘six feet’_.

Son Hyunwoo was one of the bigger guys on the team, standing at 178 centimetres at the end of his junior year of high school. Hyunwoo kind of stood out, when they were standing on the court—one of the taller guys with a bigger build and a baby face to contrast his figure. He also stood out when he perfected his half-court shots in the middle of the break times, when the other guys on the team were sitting down on the painted concrete, chugging huge water bottles and panting about how tired they were. His parents had put him into the sport, but basketball was something he never really seemed to get tired of—even when the coach allowed him to stop practicing, he couldn’t seem to let himself put the ball down and sit down with the other guys.

Hyunwoo didn’t usually like the people on his representative basketball team, because although they were all interested in the same thing, they all seemed to regard it differently. Some of the guys thought it was something to show off; a reason to drape an arm around the shoulder of a girl at their school and sleazily grin with the introduction that they were a member of the city’s representative basketball team. The other guys (who were a lot more bearable) were serious about the game, like Hyunwoo, except they were sore losers (which Hyunwoo definitely didn’t think he was—every game was generally a fair game and any losses should be reviewed and reanalyzed by the team and coach to develop better gameplay). They seemed to throw the blame of everything but themselves, when a game’s result turned out a little less than desirable. But, they’d made it to the championships, several times.

Hyunwoo was also a lot quieter than most of the other guys on the team—a man of little words, because at eighteen, being a senior at school, he didn’t think that he really needed to talk to his teammates unless they were strategizing something. He was going to be leaving the team in the following year—no longer fitting into the age requirement range of being a member of the team—and he really didn’t need to make friends he couldn’t keep, when he was doing his military service (especially not people whom he didn’t particularly enjoy the presence of _too much_ ; the members of the basketball team were only good in small doses).

Every year, there were new kids recruited into the team, when the older boys were too old to continue on with their position on the team—some of them quitting basketball altogether and others accepting basketball scholarships to schools all over the world. Hyunwoo knew he wouldn’t be one of the kids accepting basketball scholarships—he loved the game, but that wasn’t what he wanted to continue doing, when he finally made it to university.

The coach told them that they’d be meeting the new kids, today—an early afternoon in July, typical of the recruitment process—he’d earned a collective chorus of groans from the team members. After playing together for an entire year, changing up the line-up of the team was undoubtedly weird, but Hyunwoo didn’t think there was anything to fear, unless anyone was playing poorly (that would simply result in their need to be benched more frequently in the games).

“Coach, I don’t wanna give up my jersey number,” one of the boys had complained, when they looked to the kids getting out of the car in the parking lot across from the court. Hyunwoo recognized him as one of the younger boys who had joined just last year; _26, Yoo Seungwoo_. His friend nudged him with a grin.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t get kicked off the team,” he said. Seungwoo gently hit his friend with the basketball in his hands and his friend immediately rubbed the spot he’d been hit. Hyunwoo chuckled, quietly, continuing to dribble the ball absently with his hand.

“I’ll take away your jersey number, if you’re not nice to the new kids,” the coach replied, grinning. Seungwoo immediately shrunk into the corner between a few of his friends. “Hyunwoo, could you please stop dribbling the ball?”

“Sorry, sir,” Hyunwoo replied, picking the ball back up and awkwardly holding it to himself.

“We’re going to draw straws to see who goes to greet the newbies, first,” the coach told them, holding up a cup of straws. “Marked straws are the greeting team, unmarked straws can stay here and continue to practice.”

The boys on the floor all groaned in disapproval at the remark—all of them comically collapsing into the ground with the obvious disdain towards the idea of going to greet their new teammates.

“Oldest goes first,” Seungwoo called out, pointing to Hyunwoo. “You just turned eighteen, right? You’re the oldest.”

The other boys made agreeing sounds, looking around at one another and then glancing at Hyunwoo, determining that none of the other members had an earlier birthday that Hyunwoo. He supposed that they were all trying to push him into being one of the members who had to greet the new members, but when he pulled out a clean, unmarked straw, Hyunwoo grinned at his teammates as they all groaned.

 

 

 

“Hey, pass the ball,” Hyunwoo heard a voice call from behind him. Turning his head to face a lanky boy, standing a couple meters away from him, Hyunwoo raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t noticed the boy when the new kids were all filing into the court for introductions. Everyone had left the court for the day and Hyunwoo thought he was alone, but in his peripheral, he could see the retreating back of the coach, leaving the court.

“Were you just talking to Coach?” he asked, curiously, bouncing the ball over to the other boy. He assumed that the other boy was a new member of the team, if he was on the court before the coach even left. There was a long history of the coach yelling at anyone in the area who broke the reservation rules, while the court was still closed for the team.

He caught it, easily and then proceeded to dribble the ball as he spoke, “Yeah. I was supposed to come in with all the new kids, today, but the traffic jam was crazy.”

Hyunwoo found himself staring at the younger man for a moment—he had dark hair that was pushed up and out of his eyes, a small, and handsome face and plush lips. Tall, but lanky, Hyunwoo could assume that they were roughly the same height, even though the other boy stood a good distance away from him. Without the ball to distract him, though, he found himself unable to actually bring himself to start up a conversation—he was never the most social (even at school, he only stuck to his small group of friends).

Unsure of what to say, Hyunwoo awkwardly gestured to the ball that the other boy was dribbling.

“… Want to go one-on-one?”

The challenge was accepted with a grin and a nod.

The new kid was a lot better than he bargained for—his offense pushed Hyunwoo back, even as he held his arms up and tried to prevent the younger man from passing him and tossing the ball into the basket. For one, he was a lot more nimble than Hyunwoo was—they were the same height (as he confirmed, now that they were so close), but the other boy was a lot thinner and quicker. And, just as impressive as Hyunwoo’s half-court shots had been, when he’d done them in an empty court, the new kid was able to do the same thing.

And the closest he got to being able to knock the ball away from him and take it into his possession, ended up with their bodies colliding midair, before they both fell back onto the concrete in a mess of limbs.

 _“Shit,”_ Hyunwoo swore, scrambling off of the young boy and trying to check if he was alright. His answer was given to him, when he saw the flash of red on the younger boy’s hand, which he immediately tried to hide. Hyunwoo’s eyes were faster than his hands, though. Immediately concern filled his tone, “Do you live near here? If you don’t I could quickly run home and grab you a band-aid if you need one.”

The younger man shook his head, as he slowly got back up onto his feet. He winced when he put a little too much pressure onto his hand, when he pushed himself up. Hyunwoo frowned. “I don’t. I think I should be fine.”

He gingerly pressed a finger to the injury, but it was rubbed red and raw; anyone could see that he wasn’t fine.

“ _Dude_ ,” he said, frowning as he reached onto the ground and picked up his sweatshirt, “Just come with me, I’ll get you a band-aid. You’re going to get an infection, if you don’t cover that up.”

Grudgingly, the younger man nodded and followed Hyunwoo out of the basketball court and down the street. The walk home was silent as the other boy nursed the wound on his hand (by staring intensely at it, as if that was going to magically heal the spot).

Hyunwoo all but ran into the house, when they finally reached his doorstep. His mother’s greeting fading into nothing, as he rummaged through the cupboards to look for the box of bandages. Then, rushing back out of the house, he was certain that it was the strange need to take care of the younger man’s injuries himself—because he’d caused it—that made him grab his hand and place the bandage onto it, for him.

The dark-haired boy seemed a little stunned by the action, but he said nothing as he watched Hyunwoo stick the band-aid onto his hand. And it wasn’t until the younger man cleared his throat that Hyunwoo realized he was holding onto his hand, a little too long after he’d finished placing the band-aid onto him.

Dropping it, Hyunwoo cleared his throat into his fist, awkwardly. The dark-haired boy’s eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement as he studied Hyunwoo’s awkward posture. “ _Uh_ , you should probably disinfect that when you get home, and put a new band-aid on it.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” he replied, nodding. And then, he was walking back down the walkway of Hyunwoo’s house. Hyunwoo turned his body, preparing to head back into his house.

“Hey, Son,” the dark-haired boy called, and it took Hyunwoo a moment to realize that he was talking to him. It took another moment for him to realize that he was wearing his jersey with his name on it, and another second for him to realize that he never introduced himself to the younger man.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning around, halfway up the doorstep.

“Thanks for the band-aid,” he said, a small grin on his lips as he glanced at him. “I’ll see you on the court, tomorrow. Hopefully, we won’t have another accident.”

Hyunwoo nodded and flashed a small smile. The other boy turned, his retreating back facing Hyunwoo, and it took the older boy another few moments before it struck him to ask for his name.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he called after him. The younger boy turned around, a boyish grin on his lips.

“Thought you’d never ask. I’m Hyungwon,” he said. “Chae Hyungwon. You?”

“Hyunwoo,” he replied, watching the way that Hyungwon’s fringe fell into his eyes and the dark locks gleamed underneath the afternoon sunset. His voice drifted off, as he continued to stare, “Son Hyunwoo.”

Hyungwon smiled, “Hyunwoo,” he repeated, letting the name fall from his lips—comfortably rolling off of his tongue. “It was a pleasure to run into you. _Literally_.”

Hyunwoo has to swallow his embarrassment, but in that very second, where Hyungwon’s eyes seemed to twinkle under the glow of sunlight, his breath catches at the back of his throat and he thinks that Hyungwon is extremely pretty; thinks that he doesn’t fit into the standard of all the other boys on the team, at all. He decides that he kind of likes Hyungwon, a lot better than he liked the other guys on the team.

(And several weeks later, after spending every single day of his summer playing basketball with the younger boy—and sometimes grabbing a coffee with him at the nearby café, after practice—he found himself nervously asking Hyungwon out, when they were alone, both sweaty and lying flat against the concrete of the basketball court.

Hyungwon didn’t answer him, simply lacing their fingers together and continued to keep his eyes closed, as they caught their breath from the game they’d just played. But, even as Hyungwon held his hand, he wasn’t getting the answer that he wanted from the younger man—in fact, it wasn’t an answer at all.

Hyunwoo didn’t think he could be more flustered for anything, in his entire life.

“That sounds nice,” Hyungwon replied, after a long moment of silence. Hyunwoo actually exhaled a loud breath of relief, and as embarrassing as it was, he decided that Chae Hyungwon had the prettiest laugh he’d ever heard.)

**Author's Note:**

> literally watch me end up writing the "how they met" for every ship in this universe. nsbdksnsk as always, you can find me on twitter @yuseokki!


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